RECEIPTS FROM ROYALTIES, CONCESSIONS, ETC. The total receipts of the Exhibition were: From admission fees.... From concessions.. For percentages and royalties.. $3,813.749 75 289,900 00 205,010 75 $4,308,660 50 The following are given as the receipts from a part of the concession contracts : HOW MANY BOOKS ARE THERE IN THE WORLD? THE following estimate of the total number of printed books which exist in all languages, is quoted in Gabriel Peignot's "Manuel de Bibliophile," vol. i., published 1823 : Number of works from invention of printing (say 1450) to 1536.. 42,000 Number of works, 2d century from invention of printing 1536-1636.... 575,000 Number of works, 3d century from invention of printing, 1636-1736... 1,125,000 Number of works, 4th century from invention of printing, 1736-1822 (incomp.). ..... 1,839,960 3,861,960 The first century was obtained by diligent computation from Maittaire, Panzer, and the other catalogues of publications of the fifteenth century. Passing then to the last century, and availing himself of all the literary and bibliographical journals, catalogues of booksellers and of libraries, etc., he arrives at the figures quoted, viz., 1,839,960. Using these as a basis for computation of the two intermediate centuries, of which no more approximate estimate could be made, from defect of data to proceed upon, he calculates the product of each quarter century in progressive ratio, and obtains the results above recorded. Estimating each work at an average of three volumes, the total product of the printed literature of the globe is about ten millions of volumes. Our literary cipherer next estimates that three fourths of the whole may have been destroyed by use, or accident, leaving in all the public and private libraries of the globe only 2,250,000 different volumes. Peignot considers the estimate exaggerated, the facts vague, and their verification impossible. From the Financial Review, 1877. COMPOUND INTEREST TABLE. Showing the Accumulation of Principal and Interest on one Dollar, at various rates per Annum, from 3 to 10 per cent., the Interest being compounded semi-annually. $1.0302 $1.0404 $1.0455 $1.0506 $1.0609 $1.0712 $1.0743 $1.0816 $1.1025 1. 2... 3. 4. 5. 1.0613 1.0821 1.0930 1.1028 1.1255 1.1475 1.1530 1.1692 1.2155 1.0934 1.1261 1.1438 1.1596 1.1940 1.2292 1.2387 1.2646 1.3400 1.1264 1.1715 1.1948 1.2184 1.2667 1.3168 1.3308 1.2678 1.4773 1.1605 1.2188 1.2481 1.2800 1.3439 1.4105 1.4298 1.4794 1.6237 6. 7 1.2317 1.3193 1.3643 8.. 1.2639 1.3726 1.4264 $1.1956 $1.2681 $1.3001 $1.3448 $1.4257 $1.5110 $1.5360 $1.6002 $1.7957 1.4129 1.5125 1.6186 1.6502 1.7307 1.9747 1.4845 1.6047 1.7339 1.7729 1.8720 2.1827 1.5596 1.7021 1.8574 1.9047 2.0247 2,4064 1.6385 1.8061 1.9897 2.0462 2.1899 2.6530 $1.3875 $1.5458 $1.6301 $1.7234 $1.9161 $2.1315 $2.1982 $2.3687 $2.9250 2.2248 3 5558 3.9198 3.2417 4.3216 3.6712 4.5433 4.8373 5.6136 $1.8686 $2.2970 $2.5415 $2.8196 $3.4605 $4.2412 $4.5026 $5.1900 $7.7574 8.5525 6.0716 9.4292 6.5670 10.3957 7.1030 11.4612 $2.1688 $2.8006 $3.1749 $3.6091 $4.6506 $5.9827 $6.4441 $7.6826 $12.6359 $2.5170 $3.4144 $3.9660 $4.6203 $6.2500 $8.4391 $9.2227 $11.3742 $20.5827 $2.9211 $4.1621 $4.9543 $5.9144 $3.3996 $11.9041 $13.2000 $16.8367 $33.5249 3.00J4 4.3302 5.1798 6.2138 8.9111 12.7620 14.1811 18.2105 36.9612 3.1004 4.5052 5.4146 6.5284 9.4538 13.6709 15.2353 19.6965 40.7497 3.1941 4.6872 5.6610 6.8589 10.0295 14.6446 16.3677 21.3038 44.9266 3.2907 4.8766 5.9288 7.2061 10.6403 15.6877 17.5844 23.0422 49.5316 $3.3901 $5.0736 $6.1986 $7.5709 $11.2883 $16.8050 $18.8915 $24.9224 $54.6086 3.4926 5.2785 6.4807 7.9542 11.9758 18.0020 20.2956 26.9561 60.2059 3.5982 5.4928 6.7756 8.3569 12.7051 19.2842 21.8043 29.1857 66.3771 3.7070 5.7147 7.0840 8.7800 13.8832 20.6577 23.2:50 31.5348 73.1807 3.8191 5.9456 7.4062 9.2245 14.7287 22.1290 25.1663 34.1080 89.6817 $3.9345 $6.1858 $7.7430 $9.6915 $15.6257 $23.7052 $27.0369 $36.8813 $88.9516 4.0432 6.4357 8.0954 10.1822 16.5773 25.3936 29.0466 39.8908 98.0692 4.1655 6.6957 8.4638 10.6957 17.5868 27.2022 31.2057 43.1459 107.1213 4.2914 6.9662 8.8490 11.2383 18.6597 29.1397 33.5253 46.6666 118.1012 4.4211 7.2477 9.2516 11.8072 19.7941 31.2141 36.0154 50.4746 130.2066 [From Hill's Manual of Social and Business Forms, Chicago, 1875.] State Laws with Reference to Limitation of Actions, showing the Limit of Time on which Action may be brought. TOM BROWN says of the ancient and singular custom of making fools of people on the 1st of April: "I never could inform myself what gave the first rise to so odd a frolic; but methinks they might let it alone: for since three parts in four of the people are fools every day in the year, what occasion is there to set a day apart for it ?" GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT OF RAILWAYS. [Abridged from the Journal des Economistes, August, 1877.] THE attentive observer of politics and of the railway system of the different countries of Europe has remarked of late years a strong tendency to the absorption by the State of lines so long worked by charter companies. Bavaria, near the close of 1875, purchased the railways of the Eastern Bavarian Company; Saxony has assumed the lines of the railway company from Leipzig to Dresden. The Italian Legislative chambers have recently voted the purchase by the State of a portion of the roads belonging to the railway system of the peninsula. Does this absorption, this purchase of railways by the State, answer to an economical want? Do the results of working by the State, hitherto obtained, justify us in predicting a better management of the lines heretofore worked by the companies, when they shall be worked by the Government? What is the solution to be arrived at from the point of view of the general interest, in different countries? Is it that the working of railways by the State is to be preferred to that by private companics, or will the contrary solution rather have to be admitted? When two railways situated in the same country, the one belonging to the Government, the other to a private company, are in almost identical conditions as to working-that is to say, if the receipts per mile of each road, and the variations of the longitudinal sections, are approximately the same-we arrive at the following economical deductions : 1. The working coefficient, or the ratio of expenses to receipts in running the roads, is greater on the government railway than on the private one. 2. In order to obtain the same receipts, the Government is subjected to a greater expense than the private company. 3. The rate of interest paid on account of construction capital exceeds on the private railway that realized by the Government railway. 4. The expenses of working per passenger and per ton of freight under the system of the State are greater than those of the private railway. These results, founded upon the figures of the working of many years given us by statistice, arc a characteristic mark of the inferiority of the working of railways by the State, compared to the working by private companies. The economic inferiority of railway management by the State when compared with that by private companies results from several causes. The working of a railroad is above all things an industry-the industry of transportation, and as such it ought to be managed commercially. A private company should manage, and it does generally manage its railway, in the same manner as the manufacturer or merchant manages his factory or his trade. In the hands of the State, on the contrary, the railway falls into the jurisdiction of one of the ministers, and it is managed administratively. The State has to do with administration, and not with commerce. In England and in Austria, where the railways are managed on the most commercial plan by the companies which own them, or which have obtained the charters, the commercial agents of these companies traverse the country to secure freights, just as the clerks of any merchant would travel to open up markets for the goods of their patron. Private companies interest themselves in finding out means of producing new sources of traffic, of attracting new freights to their lines. If all the railways belonged to the Government, and were worked by it, these methods, employed by the railway companies to make the most out of the lines which they have in their hands, would soon fall into disuse, for they are conformed neither to the habits nor to the character of the State and of its functionaries. This is a first cause of the economic inferiority of State railways in comparison with private ones -a cause which is exhibited in a diminution of the receipts. The expenses of working a railway are no less important than the receipts. A rational and economical management requires that the expenses should constantly follow the same variations, the same law as the traffic. For the merchant and manufacturer this rule is elementary, and railways ought equally to observe it. If the traffic falls off, the expenses should fall off likewise, otherwise the working coefficient will be increased. The expense of the working force represents a very important figure in the management of a railway. If the traffic falls off, the railway companies reduce a part of their personnel. In railway management the smallest economy must not be neglected, for the amount of that saving multiplied by the number of miles of trains or of way, or by that of tons of freight, yields at the end of the year important sums, and establishes the fact that in railways there is nothing so little, no economy so trifling, as not to merit the attention of those responsible for the direction. In this respect the economic inferiority of working railways by the State compared to that of private companies is well established. Governments in general are not accustomed to dismiss a part of the official staff of a railway which it works when the traffic upon these railways diminishes. This personnel is composed in effect almost entirely of old soldiers, towards whom the State has, so to speak, contracted a moral obligation of keeping them till their age renders them unfit for working service, when it gives them a retiring pension. One point of economy in which the superiority of privately managed railroads over those of the State is incontestable, and in which the economic results obtained by private industry greatly outrun those reached by the State, consists in the utilization of the working force. Let us cite an example in the railway running from Vienna to Berlin. On the Austrian portion of this railway, the personnel of the train is composed, besides the engineer and the fireman, of one conductor in charge of the train, and two conductors charged with the care of the tickets. Now, on the same line of railway when it enters Saxony, where it is managed by the Government, the same train comprehends, besides the engineer and fireman, four conductors and three brakemen. The Saxon train has always three officers more than the Austrian train. In the latter the brakes are cared for by the three conductors of the train, who, during the trip, are seated upon the platforms, and during the stops superintend the handling of baggage, etc. The Saxon train has all these extra brakemen, and while the train is en route the conductors are scated in a reserved compartment of a car, and chatting among themselves like ordinary travellers. Estimating the expense of one brakeman at only 1500 francs per year, each regular train of travellers on the Government railway of Saxony will cost at least 4500 francs per year more than on the system of the Austrian company. One sees at once the importance reached by the figures of these additional expenses of running when the number of regular passenger trains per day is so considerable. Thus the railway companies make much better and more economic use of the officers on their trains than the railways of the State, and that, too, without any prejudice to the security of the train, and the good execution of the service. With rare exceptions it may be asserted, that the personnel employed by the Government for any given work is more numerous than that occupied upon a similar labor with a private company. The comparison of the methods pursued by State railways and by private ones to accomplish the best use of the material consumed in running trains leads to conclusions of the same character as the preceding. Railway companies are in the habit of giving to their employés, who by their attention or zeal succeed in ac |